St. David's second phase on The Hayes. The Hayes Apartments on the upper levels |
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| Location | Cardiff, Wales |
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| Opening date | 24 March 1982[1](phase 1) 22 October 2009 (phase 2) |
| Developer | St. David's Partnership (Capital Shopping Centres (50%) and Land Securities Group (50%))[2] |
| Owner | St. David's Partnership [3] |
| Architect | Benoy (phase 2)[4] Building Design Partnership (library)[4] Glenn Howells (Hayes Apartments)[4] |
| No. of stores and services | 203[2][3] |
| No. of anchor tenants | 5 (Boots, Debenhams, Marks & Spencer, British Home Stores[2] and John Lewis[3]) |
| Total retail floor area | 129,561 m2 (1,394,580 sq ft)[5] |
| Parking | 2,550[6] |
| No. of floors | 9 (2 shopping levels, 1 restaurant seating level and 6 car park levels) |
| Website | www.stdavidscardiff.com |
St. David's (previously known as St. David's Shopping Centre.[7]) is one of the principal shopping centres in the city centre of Cardiff, capital of Wales. Located in The Hayes area of the southern city centre. Owing to the extension of St Davids 2 in 2009, St David's is now the eleventh largest shopping centre in the United Kingdom.
The construction of the extension cost a total of £675m and brought Cardiff within the top five shopping destinations in the United Kingdom. The centre consists of original first phase, St David's Centre, adjoining St. David's Hall and the second phase, given the development name of St David's 2. The second phase of the shopping centre, opened on 22 October 2009, when the first 58 of its 88 stores opened for trade.[8]
In 2008-9, the annual footfall of the centre was 27 million, and is expected to rise to 33 million in 2009-10.[9] 20 million people visited the centre during the first six months after the opening of St. David's 2.[10]
St David's was crowned the international shopping centre of the year in 2010 by Global Retail Leisure International, beating contenders in Portugal and Singapore.[11]
St. David's is patrolled by three paramedics on bicycles between every Friday and Sunday in order to respond rapidly to medical emergencies.[12]
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St. David's Shopping Centre was open to the public in January 1981, although it did not officially open until 24 March 1982. The centre has entrances on Queen Street and Working Street. It previously also had an entrance on Hill's Street, but this is now the entrance to the new St. David's 2 shopping centre. It is also joined internally with Queens Arcade. There are 3 thoroughfares within the centre; Town Wall, Cathedral Walk and St. David's Way.[13]
The centre attracted an average footfall of 39,000,000 per annum[2] and has a core catchment of 2.4 million people. The 12 million tourists that visit the city annually help generate over £7.5 billion in retail spending. There are seventy-five individual shops and stores in the first centre that cater for a broad demographic. The centre is anchored by Boots, Debenhams, Marks & Spencer and Bhs[2]. It is strategically situated close to central car parking and benefits from being close to public transport services. The centre is also adjacent to St. David's Hall.
St. David's, and much of the southern end of Cardiff city centre's shopping area, was re-developed as part of the St David's 2 development.
The second phase (St. David's 2) was a £675m extension of the centre, in which a large part of Cardiff's south city centre was demolished. Demolished buildings included Oxford Arcade, St. David's Market, St. David's Link including the Cardiff Central Library, the NCP Tredegar Street multi-storey car park, the Wales National Ice Rink, the NCP Bridge Street multi-storey car park, and Toys "R" Us who relocated to Cardiff International Sports Village. The new development consists of 3 main buildings in total; a new Central Library building, which is built on part of the Marriott Hotel car park, the John Lewis department store, which is built on the former Wales National Ice Rink, and the main shopping area, which is built on the form Oxford Arcade, St. David's Link and western side of Bridge Street. It also includes apartments, called Hayes Apartments, above the main shopping centre.
The second phase is made up of different sections, they are:
St. David's 2 has added an extra 967,500 sq ft (89,880 m2) of retail space[3] to the city centre, in addition to the 260,000 sq ft (24,000 m2) John Lewis department store,[3] 9 other large stores, and a further 90 smaller shops in a two-tiered shopping mall have been built.[3] It has also created 3,000 car parking spaces, new bars and restaurants plus the new 55,000 sq ft (5,100 m2) Central Library and 4,500 permanent jobs.[14] The development has included 2 new arcades; Grand Arcade and Hayes Arcade to reflect Cardiff's historical Victorian arcades.[15]
The project, that it set to make Cardiff one of the top five shopping destinations in the United Kingdom, topped out on 27 January 2009.[16] Many of the retailers in the second phase of the centre are new to Cardiff, and to Wales, in particular John Lewis, Apple and Hollister. Ruby Tuesday have even chosen St. Davids to enter the UK and western European market. St David's is now one of the busiest shopping centres in the European Union, exceeding Birmingham's Bull Ring.
The new Central Library opened on 14 March 2009.[17] The former permanent Central Library was located a few hundred yards north of the present building and was knocked down to make way for the St. David's 2 development. The new library has six floors totalling and area of 55,000 square feet (5,100 m2) and 90,000 books. The building shares its ground floor with 3 restaurant units, Wagamama, Gourmet Burger Kitchen and Carluccio's. The architect for the building was the Building Design Partnership.[4]
Alliance is a 25 metres (82 ft) high sculpture in the The Hayes. The sculpture consists of a large stainless steel and enamelled metal arrow column and a hoop, which glows in the dark, and falls and rises with the tide.
The sculpture, paid for by the St David’s shopping centre as part of a £1.5m public art scheme in the city centre, was installed in the space between the new mall and Cardiff Central Library.[18]
Hayes Apartments, is part of St David's regeneration development by St David's Partnership - a joint venture between Land Securities and Capital Shopping Centres. It consists of 304 apartments above the shopping centre in seven blocks known as phases. The apartments are a mixture of studio flats and 1 and 2 bedroom apartments.[19] The architects for the residential Hayes Apartments were Glenn Howells Architects.[4] Hayes Apartments has private courtyard gardens designed by Hyland Edgar Driver and planted above the rooftop of the shopping centre.[20]
In summer 2010, the first residents moved into Hayes Apartments which was launched by an outdoor garden party on the development's private courtyard gardens.[21] Sales in the first two phases were announced as completed at the end of 2010 and sales began in the third phase, block 4, which is the largest block.[22] The development is due for completion in 2012.[23]
| Logos used at St. David's | |
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Johnson Banks Design Ltd were commissioned by Capital Shopping Centres and Land Securities to provide a new logo and identity for the new St. David's shopping centre.
The overall identity is based on the thought that hundreds of thousands of people will gather and use the new centre as their meeting place, and our "people" diagrams swiftly became the beginnings of the entire scheme...The "people", simplified down to dots, become the linking element in a scheme that applies across a vast array of items, from fonts to symbols and images.[24]
—Johnson Banks, the logo designers
Air Design Ltd were commissioned to provide signage, environmental graphics and to design the new website for St David's, www.stdavidscardiff.com.[25]
Media related to [//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:St_David%27s_Centre,_Cardiff St David's Centre, Cardiff] at Wikimedia Commons
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